"Bring the prisoner before me," he said briefly, and seated himself on the leathern camp-chair at the foot of his rough couch.
The officer retired, and soon returned accompanied by two halberdiers escorting a young Cavalier, completely disarmed and dusty and disordered in his dress, as if he had made a fair struggle before surrendering his liberty.
"Thy name?" asked Cromwell.
"Charles Lucas," replied the young man.
"And what hast thou to say of this escape of the King from Oxford?"
The young man laughed.
"I may now freely tell thee, thou cunning rebel, that His Sacred Majesty is by now safe in the hands of his faithful Scots."
Cromwell scarcely repressed a violent start.
"He went from Oxford in the guise of a groom," continued Sir Charles, in a tone of amusement and triumph; "and I, for one, helped him."